Cookbook Review: Giada at Home

I am a huge fan of Giada de Laurentiis, so I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of her new cookbook, Giada at Home: Family Recipes from Italy and California.

As usual, Giada's slim volume is packed with drool-worthy recipes and cool ideas that never fail to inspire me. This book, as the flap states and as the title indicates, incorporates traditional Italian dishes with the fresh, clean flavours of California. In typical Giada style, this new book also heavily features pictures of warm get-togethers with friends and family, with a heavy emphasis on Giada's new baby daughter, Jade. I have to admit, I was a smitten with the baby as I was with the recipes!

Giada always uses clean, whole ingredients in her recipes, focusing on fresh veggies and seasonality. Divided into the usual cookbook categories of appetizers, soups & sandwiches, desserts, etc., there is also a brunch chapter with some recipes I can't wait to try. The Pancetta & Cinnamon Waffles on page 228 being at the top of my list. My new waffle iron is going to get a great workout with this one. The dessert chapter also tantalized me with a very mouthwatering take on tiramisu, this one using lemon and hazelnut instead of the traditional coffee flavours. I cannot wait to make that.

The one recipe I have tried was the Rigatoni with Creamy Mushroom Sauce on page 80. I had a friend over for dinner last week and I thought this was the perfect time to try a new recipe out. This was a simple dinner, though I had to make some substitutions because marscapone cheese is way too cost prohibitive for me; I used some light cream cheese instead and it worked fine. For the mushroom assortment, I used a portabella, some regular button mushrooms, and some enoki mushrooms. Instead of white wine, I used some cooking sherry. This was a great dish! I wouldn't spend the money on enoki mushrooms again, though; they didn't really add any big flavour to this. The portabella mushroom was totally worth it, however!

This is the third Giada book I have on my cookbook shelves, and once again, it's well worth the precious space there!

Cookie Time

I love it when I get to bake for other people. It means I get to enjoy the process of baking, but I don't have a whack of sugary treats tempting me all the time. Giving baking away gives me joy, gives the recipient joy, and is good for my waistline!

Giada di Laurentiis's recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies with Hazelnuts is currently my favourite cookie recipe. I went to visit a friend the other day, and as usual when I go to see this friend, who has a 9 month old baby, I take along some baking. She & her husband always appreciate it.

The recipe is here.

I left out the nuts because A) I don't have any hazelnuts left, and B) I didn't know if anyone in my friend's household had issues with nuts (turns out, nuts aren't a problem; good to know for the future).

These are amazing cookies!

Back to Baking!

Well, it was considerably cooler today, thanks to a cold front and a bunch of thunderstorms, so I decided to do some baking. I'm also off to the lake tomorrow and wanted to bring some treats along with me. And since it's my birthday, I thought I'd make my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

It was a hard choice - because pretty much every chocolate chip cookie recipe I have is awesome and could be considered a favourite. I've never met a chocolate chip cookie I didn't like! So, I decided to pick the most decadent recipe I could find and whose ingredients I had on hand. I chose Giada de Laurentiis's Chocolate Chip Cookies with Hazelnuts. Recipe here.

This is an awesome recipe! I even had a bag of Chipits Skor bits on hand, that I'd bought on sale a while ago but hadn't yet used. I also had exactly one cup of hazelnuts from last year's hazelnut harvest left over, which reminded me that in less than two months, I should be harvesting hazelnuts again from my SIL's parents' tree. I can't wait for that!

The cookies were wicked and I got about 4 dozen - plenty for an overnight camping trip.

I'm totally stoked about going to the lake, even though the weather might not be as hot as it was last week - I don't care! If you are interested in my plans, see this post!

101 Uses for a Roast Chicken #15: Chicken & Olive Ravioli

This is the second dish I made on the weekend with the chicken I wrote about in yesterday's post. It's a variation on Giada de Laurentiis's Ravioli Caprese, which I blogged about here. I like this method of making the ravioli dough: it's easy, quick, and involves two whole ingredients - flour and water. Oh, I have a pasta maker and a ravioli press, but this is just as good. For the dough and for the directions on how to form the ravioli, follow the instructions in the original recipe here.

For the filling, the following is what I used. I put olives in because I had some kicking around from a dish I made a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to use them up.

Chicken & Olive Ravioli Filling

3/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
12 - 15 kalamata olives, pitted & finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped chicken from a roast chicken
2 tsp dried basil (or fresh)
1 egg
2 cloves of garlic, crushed or grated
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Fill ravioli as directed in the recipe.

I served this with some left over sauce from my Eggs in Purgatory meal. It was really good ravioli, and made enough for three meals. I put the left over ravioli in the freezer for future meals.

Bon appetit!